Alicorn Launcher

Note

The developers behind Alicorn have shifted since early 2023. We're now planning to commit major changes to Alicorn for new features, improved stability, optimized code and better user-experience.

That launcher of the block game, once with the magic of friendship.

Our Goal

The development of Alicorn is based on the following vision:

• Game First

  Craft your game experience and click to play. Leave the technical jobs to us.

• Free as in Pricing

  You're paying for playing, no more for launching.¹

• Free as in Freedom

  Things related to your game really shouldn't be touched by something you can't control.

• Cross Platform

  Play on any computer regardless of its OS.²

• Fast

  Spend time in your world, not entering your world.

• Space Utilization

  Create hundreds of game experiences while storing only one copy of game assets.

• Not Opinionated

  Play the game in the way you like. It's never a crime to fly in your own world.³

• Privacy Aware

  We collect no data for analysis. There's no option to enable it.

Supported Platforms

Note

Platforms that do not have corresponding LWJGL artifacts are unsupported.

Important

Certain game experiences may not be available on platforms that Alicorn runs on.

Systems:

• Microsoft Windows 10 / 11
• Apple macOS (Big Sur or later)
• GNU/Linux
  • There are no detailed compatibility metrics, but recent releases should work.

Architectures:

• x64 (amd64)
• arm64 (aarch64)

Build Instructions

Note

You may not need to build Alicorn yourself. For production usages, use stable releases can help to avoid potential bugs and pitfalls. To access the latest features, update from the beta channel to get tested builds. Only build from source for development.

Prerequisites

You can build Alicorn for preview on any platform it runs on. However, windows-arm64 and linux-arm64 cannot be used as the host when packaging.

The following tools are required:

• Bun (v1.1 or later)

  We use Bun to run our build tools for performance reasons. The Bun version for building will not affect the Node.js version bundled with Electron.

• Git

• Wine, when building on non-Windows platforms.

Get the Source Code

git clone --filter=tree:0 https://github.com/Andy-K-Sparklight/Alicorn.git

Flag --filter=tree:0 reduces the amount of files to receive, yet preserves the commits.

Build and Preview

Install dependencies:

bun install

Tip

Alicorn has a set of customizable build options which toggles or adjusts certain features. These options can help when building Alicorn with different "flavors". See config.ts for details.

Important

Additional files (know as "vendors") may need to be downloaded during the build process. Keep online when building.

Preview for production:

bun prod
bun start

Preview for development (with live reload):

bun dev

Create Packaged Binaries

Run the following command to create unzipped packages for all supported platforms:

bun dist

The output files locate at out.

License

GPL-3.0 (or any later version)

Disclaimer

Alicorn is an unofficial (third-party) work. The development of Alicorn is not related to Mojang or Microsoft.

Footnotes

1. We as developers follow the EULA of the game and advocate copyright protection. A valid account is required to enter the game session. ↩

2. When supported by the game. ↩

3. Cheat clients are forbidden in certain servers and are protested by the community. Use them at your own risk. ↩